


Truth Hurts

by ZeMegaShipper



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, But it switches to Remus during some parts, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Needs a Hug, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders-centric, I mean come on we have Roman and Remus, Kidnapping is also a thing, Remus - Freeform, Roman and Remus lives in the imagination, Their parts of the imagination has weather affected by their emotional state, There's a bit of fluff??, They all need a hug, Whoooo boi this gets quite angsty, Yes I'm still bad at tagging, cursing, eventual hurt/comfort, oh yeah, other tags, some blood, trigger warnings are
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22328332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeMegaShipper/pseuds/ZeMegaShipper
Summary: "A feral growl came from Remus, but he stayed quiet, surprising even Deceit. “Y-you- That can’t be true. S-sure he’s insecure, we all already knew that, but… He’s always so happy here…” Patton stammered through his thoughts. Setting Remus off. “Oh yeah? Well, let’s just see exactly how happy he is then, why don’t we?” With that, Deceit was scooted to the side, beside Patton now and Roman was dragged up beside him forcefully, with a protest starting in his throat that quickly fell silent when he noticed his brother rage-enduced at this point, the others looking to him with pleading eyes and Deceit glancing away from him almost guiltily."In other words, Deceit and Remus has noticed Roman isn't doing so swell and were getting frustrated none of the other sides seemed to notice or care, so they device a plan to help, but it quickly goes south. It ends up with Roman running away, but how will the others rescue the prince when he seemingly vanished into thin air?
Relationships: Ships are to be determined
Comments: 11
Kudos: 74





	Truth Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> This will be quite the short story. It's something I just started when I was feeling particularly out of control with my own emotions. There's a reason behind that but either way, I guess I'm somewhat projecting onto Roman?
> 
> Still, I wanted to stay as accurate to the characters as possible so most of it is just story.
> 
> Either way, yeah, this gets kinda angsty, so... Be careful.

The click of boots echoed against the pristine floors. Floors full of rubble and debris as if the place had already crumbled to ruins. Each step the prince took, only thickened the lump of dread in the prince’s throat. The halls he’d walked a hundred thousand times before screamed the same feeling as they always had. Surroundings felt gray despite the colorful interior. The effort he’d put into making all the colors pop but still feel harmonized in order to avoid just this gray situation felt pointless now when it was starting to happen anyway.

The prince snorted quietly to himself. How ironic. The palace now just seemed like a reflection of all his work anyway. It felt futile.

Even so, his own exterior couldn’t be a reflection of him or his work, so he told himself to stand up straight and put on that boisterous smile everybody loved and expected of him once more. The smile he’d personally grown to despise, but his own opinion never seemed to matter anyway when it came to it. Everything else was always prioritized above him...

He approached the entrance of the castle and faced the wall to the side of him where cracked mirrors were stretching all the way up to the rounded roof of the castle before the doors leading outside. He stared back at his own disproportioned reflection in the cracked glass as he slowed down to a stop. A frown set upon his face as one snap of his fingers put the glass back into a smooth surface, the shards on the floor disappeared and another snap of fingers as he erased every trace of the late nights he’d spent to work and every trace of imperfection he could find on his face erased off his skin, the bags and darkness that had settled under his eyes were replaced with smooth skin and the paleness of his cheeks gained a little natural-looking blush. A final snap and his clothes straightened out. He let his smile rise to his face again and tried to keep his eyes a bit more open as he summoned colored contacts to cover his lifeless and grey eyes.

The grey eyes only served to remind him of the last creative block he was still recovering from, The block that stripped his magic away from him and made the palace and kingdom outside fall to ruins and hence how unkempt the palace seemed at this moment.

The little amount of his magic that went into this special morning routine didn’t require much magic to be upkept. Normally, that is. However, the creative block this time had ripped quite a bit of magic from his system. The top floors were a mess and the windows were cracked all over, letting the cold air in and adding to the dead and dull look of the place. He sighed, realizing it was going to take a while before his magic was back to its normal state again so he could repair everything.

Now having the contacts in place, he sucked in a final breath of anticipation, forgetting the lump in his throat and walking outside the doors and being greeted by the imagination. It was cloudy with a visible likelihood rain would be coming up, but the view of the town and its residents were always a beautiful and welcome sight from the hill the palace were perched upon.

“Prince Roman.” A voice suddenly called from his left and the prince looked to the voice of his loyal advisor to greet them back. “Why, hello Divos! Any updates over the night?”

The advisor, Divos, looked back at the prince a moment too long and sighed as he muttered a quick spell and a paper landed into his hand. “Outside of the few bandits that’s been raiding the outskirts of the village, there’s been nothing in particular that the patrol guards reported.”

“Ah, yes we need to deal with that issue as soon as possible... Any suggestions then?” Roman asked as they started walking towards the town. “There isn’t really much we can do… While our magic is regenerating, yes, it’s still very low since your creative block started and the bandits are hard to trace, though we’re thinking they might be using the sewer system in order to get in, which could be a major problem once they’ve learned to maneuver them. Still, I don’t think they are our main issue to focus on at the moment. One of our sorcerers said they might have felt the dragon witch’s presence nearby. It was apparently far up in the air and hard to tell, but it’s worth noting. They might be planning something again…” Roman pondered for a moment at the analysis.

“All of this seems like quite the unfortunate timing, but we can figure something out, surely. It’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before-” Before Roman could continue, Divos interrupted him. “Excuse my interrupting you, prince, but I’d highly suggest putting up stronger wards around the castle before we move onto anything else. I know you don’t like the extra attention to your personal defense and I’m aware that you are the kingdom’s strongest warrior, but the dragon witch was sensed around the area of the castle… And with the frequency of your creative blocks lately, that doesn’t bode well for your safety or for the kingdom as a whole.”

The prince sighed, fighting back a frown. “Ah… I see the issue, but trust me, I’ve faced them one-on-one before! I know how to handle myself.” At that, Divos shared a look with him that felt more just like the two glaring at each other. “I’m aware… Forgive me once more Roman, but business terms aside, these blocks are honestly growing terrifying. For us as your friends and for the townspeople alike. You need to talk with the other sides and make them lower their standards of you and your work. Because that’s why all of this is happening. They can’t honestly keep prioritizing your being as dirt on the ground. Your part is so much bigger than they realize and ignoring you like this-”

Roman interrupted him. “Okay Divos, enough! The only other side that you’ve ever even met is Remus, which isn’t a very good example, if I’m being honest. You have no right to speak of them like that when you know almost nothing about them! Now get back to your duties and I’ll get back to mine. Thomas has a new video to film and a good prince is never late.” Divos stopped in his tracks, face unchanging. A face mixed with anger and concern as Roman stopped himself a few steps ahead but not turning back. “Besides… It’s my fault that I am like this to begin with…” That said, Roman continued the last of his path through the kingdom and the start of a forest, rain started to fall from the sky and a low rumble sounded through the air. Roman sighed as he came upon a door placed in the middle of the forest. He collected himself once more as he opened the door.

Entering the halls of the mind palace, he first then started to notice the rain had begun to sink through his clothes, slowly soaking him. “Oh great…” he mumbled to himself. “Princey?” He saw Virgil approaching him. “Excuse me for asking, but why are you soaking wet?” Virgil kept an eyebrow raised to him as he stopped a bit away from the fanciful side.

“Oh, don’t you worry, Stormcloud! It was just raining in the imagination is all!” Roman snapped his fingers and all the water dried up. “See! Back to my fabulous self already!”

Virgil still eyed him sceptically but a small smile reached his lips and let out a playful scoff. “There’s weather in the imagination? Isn’t that place supposed to be like, picture perfect?” The prince’s eyebrows knitted together for a second or two. “Of course there is! Rain is a necessary part of life, my emo friend!” And well, he wasn’t wrong, but what he left out of the conversation was that his part of the imagination was quite heavily affected by his emotional state. However enlightening the other side of that, would just lead to unnecessary discussion of why it had been raining when he got out in the first place. 

“Besides,” Roman began to say, heading for the common area. “I don’t mind rain all too much.” he said, winking at virgil who let out a small chuckle before following Roman to the room.

As they both entered, they saw Deceit and Remus already there. “Oh hello, Virgil. Awful to see you, Roman. How are the both of you today?” The scaled man asked as a slight hiss was heard from Virgil as the side trekked on into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. “Guess that’s his answer” Deceit said, a small frown on his face. 

“Bro!” Remus came, launching his mace towards Roman’s head, only gracing it. Roman grumbled. “Why does that always have to be your greeting.  _ Every. Time. _ ” 

“That’s just how I show my love, dear brother!” At which Roman just outright groaned into his hand before raising his head up again and by sweeping a hand through his hair, erasing the traces of the wound Remus’ mace made in the meantime but regretfully finding his magic acted slower than he liked… Well now he knew today’s magic limit. “Yeah about that…” Roman replied bitterly.

“You guys totally shouldn’t get ready for summoning, by the way. Thomas isn’t already filming with Patton and Logan and your cue isn’t coming up” Deceit spoke up. Directing all attention to him. Virgil stood in the doorway to the kitchen “Gotcha. They’re already summoning me” He said looking down longingly at the coffee in his hand before setting it on the counter and sighing. “See you all later.” They all waved at him as he sank out.

“Remus, you’ll be in this video too, right?” Roman asked, looking to his brother. “Indeed-e-do! I will help addressing the issue in the continuation of ‘Selfishness vs. Selflessness’!” Remus said excitedly. Roman looked at his brother as he could feel his eyelids drooping a bit, quickly opening them a bit more before the other two sides would notice, albeit too late as something in Remus’ expression changed and Deceit narrowed his eyes at Roman.

Roman raised an eyebrow and continued to play it off. “Why do I feel like you’re going to mention something about an affair after the wedding took place…?” Remus spared Deceit a quick, knowing glance, before playing along. “Oh, that’s a good idea! I’ll be sure to let the others know you were the one to come up with it!” Roman’s eyes pleaded as he responded. “Please don’t.”

“Too late.” Deceit said simply before he sighed. Sinking further into the chair he was sitting in. “Well… It would seem it’s not my time to come on soon, so I shouldn’t get ready.” Then, with a sway of his gloved hand, his appearance changed and mirrored the Prince’s. “Oh right, you’re supposed to impersonate me this video, right?”

Deceit responded in a voice sounding a touch too boisterous for his taste. “Indeed I will, my dear Prince! Did you not read the script?! You seem to ask quite a few questions here!” Roman shrugged his shoulders and went over to the other couch, feeling his legs and back thank him for resting a bit. Damn, he was really exhausted. “I skimmed over it and read my lines. I’m a busy prince!”

Remus and ‘Roman’ shared another knowing look. Roman began to wonder if they had the ability to speak telepathically with how many times they did that just this morning. “Either way, Deceit, I would assume they’re going to summon you about now?”

“As if on cue! They are calling me on the scene now!” ‘Roman’ said a smile on his face. Roman himself could already see it was a touch too much to be real, but smiled anyway as ‘Roman’ sunk out with a dramatic bow. 

Once Deceit was out of the room, Remus went over to the long couch Roman sat at and plopped down beside him, relaxing into the cushions. It was silent for another moment as the two brought themselves into their own thoughts.

“I seem to have missed who is going to see through Deceit’s disguise. Could you remind me?” Roman suddenly piqued up again. Remus stayed quiet for a touch too long before responding. “They aren’t even going to have a clue, Roman. I’m the one who pops in to reveal the truth.”

“Oh…” Roman managed to utter, voice shaking slightly. “So that’s why my cue was the last one…”

Remus hummed, face neutral but as he eyed his brother and seeing the flash of sadness cross his face, he couldn’t help the anger and concern from coming to his eyes. He took a shaky breath, trying to calm down. Temper had never been on his side. 

Deceit and him had already devised a plan to let the others know exactly what is happening to his brother. He just had to keep his emotions from controlling him until the right time came along. They needed to know his brother had been suffering in silence for far too long...

Meanwhile, Roman got his act together again quickly and let out a laugh. “I guess you can put use to your brutal honesty, huh?”

“Pfft. Yeah, yeah, I suppose you could say that.” Remus replied, letting his goofy personality slip back on his face. “Welp! It’s going to be a while before we’re coming on, so let’s watch a movie while we wait!” Then, without further ado, the TV came on and started playing Aladdin. Roman raised an eyebrow at his brother once more at the choice of movie.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot you also had a thing for Disney films.” Roman said as he stared back at the screen, the seller in the start of the movie introducing the lamp. “Eh. The romantic stuff was never my thing, but these films can get quite juicy!”

A face of disgust crossed Roman’s face as he adjusted his position on the couch to get a bit more comfortable. “I’ve told you already, don’t ever use that word under any circumstances. Even eating or drinking, you somehow make it still sound dirty.”

“Excuse me, I didn’t hear you over the sound of how juicy this movie is already.” Remus said, evil grin on his face, eyes never leaving the screen. Roman, on the other hand just screamed into the nearest pillow he found.

After that, however, silence settled over the room. It wasn’t until about an hour later that Remus felt the familiar tug at his chest. During the movie, Roman had accidentally fallen asleep on his shoulder. The contact of another being resting on him felt foregn, but welcome. However, touch-starved as Remus knew he was, he also knew he needed to wake his brother up despite the little sleep he knew the other got. Roman couldn’t miss his part. Not in this video.

Remus pushed off his brother and went to the kitchen to get a glass from the cupboard and filling it with ice cold water. Going back to the couch, he didn’t even hesitate before throwing the water at Roman’s face, effectively waking the other up in a frenzy as he immediately began going off on how he could’ve turned blind, and deaf, and mute, ending off on how he could’ve died and this was a murder attempt. 

For simply throwing water at him, Remus wanted to empathize.

With only a wave of his hand he sunk out and into the video, hearing Roman huff and sit down before he was completely out.

As Remus rose into the shot of the camera beside ‘Roman’, the previous arguing abruptly just stopped and, while a bit disconcerted at the sudden silence, he continued his role. “Seems someone called for me! Alright who’s the thirsty one here?” At which Thomas internally screamed, Virgil began spluttering, Logan and Patton just looked at him confused and ‘Roman’ slapped his hand to his head.

“Hello, Remus… God, I can’t go one video without one of you dark sides appearing, can I?” To which Remus feigned confusion at them saying he was the only dark side, ignoring the jab at Deceit and himself. They both already knew they weren’t wanted anyway. ‘Roman’ and Remus shared a quick glance at each other as quick confirmation the plan was in motion.

“Hey! It isn’t my fault one of you implied something that called my ass here.” Remus said, shrugging his shoulders, hearing Virgil scoff from the stairs. “Besides, it’s not like I’m alone here.” The wary mood in the room immediately turned tense, shock crossing each of their faces to various degrees. Good actors, he’ll admit.

“Does that mean…?” Patton started. “Is Deceit here?” Virgil finished, fear riddling his voice. “How come we never noticed it though?” Logan asked changing his stance a bit.

Remus continued with his carefree attitude. “Yes, I’m quite surprised too, especially since it’s rather obvious, sorry Deceit.” Remus said, looking down at his nails that he’d painted black with small butts on them, but then his voice dropped a bit uncharacteristically for him as he looked up again at the others, a dark look in his eyes. “It’s actually pretty hurtful with how much shit he puts up with to impress all of you. Yet you can even differentiate him whatsoever.” And they were now off script, plan set in motion.

The others were set back for a moment, but continued with their roles. He could see Virgil first acting like it clicked, the guy looked down guiltily. 

“Uh- well, surely that’s a little exaggerated. Deceit’s whole purpose is to disguise himself. He literally represents lies.” Logan defended hurriedly, as he pushed down the panic crawling up his throat. 

“Why, yes, he’s such a slimy side when he does that! But even I, as an actor, must admit I thought you guys already knew!” Deceit’s voice broke through a bit of Roman’s exterior as Patton too, visibly caught onto Deceit’s act.

Thomas looked worriedly between Virgil, Logan and Patton.

Remus scoffed. “You guys are seriously terrible. Set all these goals on him and still criticize him when he does what he’s asked. All things considered, he’s only half of Thomas’ imagination. He’s broken and torn himself to bits just in order to get all of your wills through. It’s no surprise that part of the imagination is falling apart at the seams as we speak!” Remus let his anger seep deeper and deeper into his voice, echo entering over time, the other sides were looking to him in abject horror and realization. A sigh and shuffling was heard from beside him and Deceit’s tone of voice sounded in his ears.

“Remus, you need to calm down. Try not to kill anybody here.” Deceit said seriously, placing a careful hand on Remus’ shoulder. “But he does have a point. None of you have been treating Roman very well...” Deceit eyed the other sides, his own deathly glare settling in his eyes. 

A feral growl came from Remus, but he stayed quiet, surprising even Deceit. “Y-you- That can’t be true. S-sure he’s insecure, we all already knew that, but… He’s always so happy here…” Patton stammered through his thoughts. Setting Remus off. “Oh yeah? Well, let’s just see exactly how happy he is then, why don’t we?” With that, Deceit was scooted to the side, beside Patton now and Roman was dragged up beside him forcefully, with a protest from the princely side, that quickly fell silent when he noticed his brother rage-enduced at this point, the others looking to him with pleading eyes and Deceit glancing away from him almost guiltily.

“Woah... What’s happening here?” Roman warily asked, he looked around at all the others, trying to let out a small laugh to light up the mood a bit and then he saw Remus visibly gulp.

“I’m sorry for this, Roman.” Roman only stared in confusion as Remus held up his fingers and snapped them. In that same moment, Roman felt most of his magic be ripped away from him. Remus visibly cringed when he noticed just how little he had to take and Roman watched worriedly as his exterior changed back to what he was too familiar with. Touching his face as he began breathing faster at the roughness of his skin and the dent they crossed under his eye. A chill ran down his spine as His mind didn’t want to accept this happening.

Patton covered his mouth with his hands with sympathy and guilt, Deceit slowly looked over, sadness pressed through his eyes while the rest of his expression began frowning. Thomas still looked horrified. Logan had completely forgotten about his emotionless mask, so much worry, sadness, confusion and shock shifting on his face, Virgil could only stare, possibly feeling the guiltiest for letting it get to this point in the first place as he noticeably was reaching an anxiety attack soon.

Remus just looked to him, more anticipation and worry in his eyes. A wary expression, it would seem even Remus didn’t know it had gotten this bad either. Roman breathed heavily as his gaze shifted between all of them, ending on Remus as he opened and closed his mouth multiple times, trying to get his voice to work. “How-... How could you do this?” Roman finally managed, all his muscles tensing as he sunk into himself.

It took another while before Remus responded. “... They needed to know, Roman. You can’t keep going like this.”

Roman let out a mix between a laugh and a sob, tears starting to fall from his eyes. “The fuck, I can!” Roman exclaimed, voice breaking. “And since when did you even care to begin with?!” Oh, that one stung. 

“Roman-” Said man interrupted his brother before he could continue. “No, fuck you, this is the last straw, don’t ever even think about talking to me again!” Roman all but screamed and sank out immediately after.

Remus felt he had no words left to say, tuning out all the others and felt his own tears run down his cheeks.

Which was the first time that had happened in many, many years.

During all of this Roman was already running through the common area, hearing Patton the first one to call out his name as he was already at the door to the imagination. His tears didn’t stop rolling from his eyes and while his breaths were ragged, his limp legs kept carrying him.

He opened the door and was pushed back a step as he resisted the storm winds and heavy rain already pushing at him from the entrance to the imagination. Still, despite his shaking limbs, he ran and ran. The thunder roared everywhere and it was loud. The trees didn’t protect him much from the rain pouring down from the sky and the cold winds sunk into his clothes and skin.

He kept running, but once he was at the entrance to his kingdom, he stopped for a moment, recalling the argument with Divos this morning and actively deciding he didn’t want to deal with that after what had just happened outside of the imagination.

He took a B-line to his right and ran into the thicker forest, towards the mountains farther off. He didn’t know how long he ran but his energy was dissipating quickly and he didn’t have much magic left to help himself after Remus took most of it and he had already begun freezing.  _ A lot _ .

Soon he was tripping forward when his feet met rocky ground. Luckily his arms took most of the fall, still, he felt a low ache in his left leg as he pulled himself up and looked up at the smaller, rocky hill he’d crashed into. Not much higher than where he crouched, he saw a cave opening into the hill. With his last energy, he pushed himself into the cave.

Which proved difficult as he couldn’t even move his left leg anymore.

Once he heaved himself into the cave and to one of its walls, he had half a mind to inspect the wound on his leg and arms. Mere scrapes on his arms but his pants had been torn and there were so much blood. He sucked in a breath and roughly hit his head against the wall behind him, realizing he needed to stop the bleeding. He lifted his shaking hand and, with what shouldn’t have been that much effort, tore off his sash from his shoulder. He could distantly hear some tiny metal dropping on the ground beside him, but couldn’t care enough to check what it was as he wrapped the fabric around his leg and with the last of his power tightening it around to stop the bleeding. He felt himself whimper loudly as he did so. It hurt. Everything hurt.

Roman then took a moment of silence. Trying to process everything of the day before more sobs racked through his body. It took another while for him to calm down. Exhaustion and leftover pain consuming him as his eyes grew heavy.

Then the last thing he registered before falling asleep was the sound of footsteps and him being lifted up. It felt as if he was outside again and then he absently remembered something that sounded an awful lot like the flap of wings.

But he couldn’t stay conscious any longer than that.

**Author's Note:**

> It's 4.30AM on a school night. I think sleep is now in order.


End file.
